Telephone Wires
by Abigail-Nicole
Summary: A memory, a phrase, a girl, a plan, and a third of his soul. Years later, Artemis is trapped in a psych ward and will do anything to escape. Will she change Artemis? Humor, angst, drama, one-sided romance, very little LEP.
1. Lunar Canon

**Telephone Wires**

**Chapter 1: Lunar Canon**

**lu·nar** _adj._ Of, involving, caused by, or affecting the moon, measured by the revolution of the moon, of or relating to silver.

**can·on **_n._** :** An established principle: the canons of polite society. A basis for judgment; a standard or criterion. _also_ The works of a writer that have been accepted as authentic. 

**Summary:** A memory, a phrase, a girl, and a plan. Years later, Artemis is trapped in a psych ward and will do anything to escape. 

**Notes:** Madison and Artemis are both eighteen. To clear things up, Madison was schizophrenic until she was seventeen, when she committed her crime. Artemis has been admitted not six months ago. Features Artemis being an evil, manipulative bastard, if not this chapter. You have been warned. This could become chaptered, but I'm going to try to end this part of it at least so that if I don't feel like continuing it, you won't be stuck with it, waiting forever. Title will be explained, maybe in this chapter. I'm writing this over a period of...a long time. Two days so far, which is a long time for me, especially just for a chapter. 

This chapter is kind of messed up, so if I do any editing whatsoever it's gonna be major. Changing scenes around, writing scenes, changing POV's, etc. I might do a second girl for chapter two, who will be the exact opposite of Madison. Yes, Madison is a Mary-Sue with schizophrenic tendencies, but there's a good reason for it. 

And I don't speak French. 

**Disclaimer: **Artemis belongs to Erin Colfer. I like Artemis better than the LEP, contrary to popular opinion. And I like deep, dark fics, contrary to the most popular type of Fowl-fic. So no 'game shows' from me.

* * *

_"Master Artemis," Butler's unspoken question hung in the air, doubt in his words enough to be palpable. He looked over at Artemis, who was sitting in the front seat with his eyes closed, leaned back against the leather with his eyes closed. "How long will this be?"_

_"I don't know, Butler," Artemis forced himself to say. "I wish I did. Hopefully Father's lawyers will get me out fairly early, if he doesn't take it into his head that I deserve to serve time for this." His voice was disgusted on the last part of the sentence. The last time Artemis had spoken to Fowl Sr., his father had been most displeased at discovering his son's criminal activities yet again. _

_"I partly blame myself, for being away for so long," he said to his son. "But now that I am back, I expect you to come back to legitimate activities, and I mean it, Artemis. You have to learn that you can't get out of anything."_

_Artemis sighed quietly. "I just hope I can get out."_

_Butler turned to look at his charge. "Will you be all right?"_

_"Besides the boredom and irritation of being constantly exposed to psychologists?" Artemis snorted. "I should be physically fine. Don't worry, Butler. I'll be out soon."_

-

"Hello."

Artemis raised an eyebrow at the redhead sitting in front of him. "Do not attempt to speak to me again," he said icily. "I have more important things to do than be here, I do not belong here, and I will get out as soon as the lawyers get things worked out. Kindly remove yourself from my table before I force you to do it physically." 

The redhead leaned back and smiled, crossing her legs in front of her. "Aren't you the social one," she mused. "Yes, nice to meet you too, I'm Madison, I'm doing fine, thanks. No, the weather is not nice and yes, I can't wait to get out either. So what about you?" 

Artemis raised one eyebrow. "Go away," he said coldly. 

"Your name?" she said cooly, impervious to his icy, unblinking stare and open hostility. 

"Don't you have rubber walls to go bounce off?" he asked coldly. 

"I finished my Latin this morning, worked on my language during lunch, met with my psychologist half an hour ago and exlained to her the finer points of writing novels, and beside that, my schedule is clear. I was supposed to go out with Aunt Anita this afternoon for tea and golf, but apparently there are problems with her security clearance. And no, I am not in a rubber-walled room. So, what is your name?" 

"I am Artemis Fowl," he said, and even with that frosty tone there was a hint of grandeur to the way he said it. 

"_Finalement_," Madison said, with a snort of annoyance. Finally. "I am Madison le Grante. The next question, I believe, is goes something like: So why are you in here?" 

"I choose not to disclose that information," Artemis said coldly. 

Madison raised an eyebrow. "Embarrassed? Don't be. This is just the rich psych ward. Let me guess--you're antisocial? I know, you're marveling at my amazing powers of deduction. An _idiot savant_, if I don't miss my mark. And your name is Fowl. As in the famous criminal Fowls. So did they catch you on a scam?" 

"It was an underestimation," he said, his voice tight. "I was betrayed by a source." 

Madison sat back, her expression confused and amused. "Who the hell talks like that?" she demanded, shaking her head. "Betrayed by a source? And they put you here instead of in prison." 

"It is no business of yours," he said coldly. Madison spread her hands in a gesture of innocence. "And since you are so inquisitive, what reasons do you have for being here?" 

"Schizophrenia and murder," she said testily. "My parents were too rich to let me go anywhere else." 

"Murder?" Artemis asked, raising one eyebrow. 

"It was three years ago." Her voice was tight, declaring the subject closed, but Artemis pressed on out of curiosity. 

"Murder. Intentional, cold-blooded murder, not manslaughter or a passion crime," he said, looking at her, his statement half question. The flicker in her eyes confirmed it. "Why? Oh, wait," he said mockingly, "You're schizophrenic, too. The little green aliens told you to, right?" 

Madison's eyes flashed dangerously. "I had a cousin for three years," she said tightly. "From the time I was fourteen. At boarding school, she was my roommate. And then, I find out she never existed." 

"And the murder was linked with that," he said, not so much as a question as a statement. Madison ignored it. 

"Celia--that was her name--had a father that wanted to kill her," she said, her voice condescending and scoffing, as if at Artemis's ignorance of the subject. He bristled. "She claimed that a new teacher at the school was her father, and she was so afraid of him that I told her I'd kill him to keep her safe." Madison's voice was dead. "And I did." 

There was a short silence. "So there you have it, the entire bloody history," she said flatly. "And I believe the next question is: So, horrible weather we're having, isn't it?" 

"And you didn't feel remorse for what you did," Artemis said, his tone objective. "Because Celia meant everything to you, right?" 

"Yes," Madison said, and her voice was very soft. 

"Interesting." Artemis sat back in his chair and steepled his fingers. Madisdon glared at him. 

"That's very annoying." 

"It is my habit," he said, with a finality. "What triggered the schizophrenia? Stress? School?" 

Madison shrugged. "Both. The school was horrible," she said, and her voice was contemptous. "Full of sniveling gossips, petty bubble-gum chewing blonde bitches and pretty boys who didn't know the difference between a date and a rape. Teachers that didn't give a damn so long as they got their paychecks. Homework every night, drugs on campus, weekly letters from home pressuring to be more, to be better. Always, always, someone nagging at you that you weren't good enough." Her voice turned bitter and she glared at Artemis. "Everyone hates you at prep schools." 

"True enough," Artemis acknowledged, having been the victim of those crimes too many times. "Except for Celia," he added on an afterthought, staring at her thoughtfully. 

"Yes," she said simply, and leaned back in her chair to look right at him. 

Artemis watched her carefully. Her eyes were watching him carefully, and he could almost see her mind working. 

"And I suppose that you liked it better being schizophrenic," he said, his tone suddenly business-like. "I don't know. I have no disorders of that type." 

"Everyone lives in their own version of a fantasy world," Madison said, her eyes watching them. "Mine just got too real. And you...I think that you live in a fantasy world where you can do whatever you like." 

Artemis smiled, vampiric. "But for me, it's the truth," he said, cold and hard. His dark eyes met her pale ones and they both stared, cold and intense, a sort of staring contest--a challenge mixed with a mutual hate--of school, of psychologists, of mental disorders, of the law--of life. 

"And it's three o'clock," Artemis said after a moment, and shut his notebook with a smile, breaking the stare. "It was nice talking with you, Madison le Grante. I'll be late for my psychologist, so please excuse me." 

"I shall see you later," Madison said, and Artemis left the common room, Madison's pale eyes on him the entire way out. 

-

Artemis stared at the ceiling bleakly. Bedtime was one of the few things they did enforce, nevermind the fact that he was insomniac. Bedtime was for everyone, every night precisely at ten. No matter that he was eighteen, old enough to check himself out...if he weren't here for criminal activity.

A clock in the hall was ticking. It was an old, mahogany grandfather clock, because, after all, this wasn't just a psych ward. It was a 'Home'. Where the rich sent their eccentric old relatives. Artemis snorted. If you were poor, you were mad, if you were rich, you were eccentric. And could get away with almost anything.

He mentally cursed himself again, then stopped. Nothing good had come of that, and nothing good ever would. But there was nothing here. This place was so closed in. He hadn't seen a computer in six months, no books except what they brought him. His mind had nothing to plot, nothing to manipulate.

That damned ticking was so _loud_. Over and over, steadier and steadier, like a pounding in his mind, fencing in his thoughts, pushing them in circles. His eyes roamed the room restlessly. White walls. White ceiling. White floor. White sheets and white comforter on the bed, where he lay. White moonlight coming through his window. It made his skin itch, the moonlight, glowing so pale white. Nothing had color here, nothing had anything which he could use to pry his way out. His fingernails hadn't been manicured in forever, and he dug them into his palms, edging towards the shadows on his bed. The moonlight wouldn't work, it never worked, it always made his skin itch and his eyes hurt every time he tried to read by it. Or write.

No, he couldn't write. Everything he wrote down here was read, read and analyzed by psychologists. Black lead on white paper, no ink pens because they're too sharp, you know, and these are dangerous people. To themselves. Where was Butler? Butler always trusted him, trusted him implicitly. With his life, with Butler's life, with Juliet's life. Had he been trusted with a life? It seemed so long ago, he could barely remember. He couldn't think in the midst of all this white.

Desperately, he closed his eyes, figures burning onto the inside of his eyelids. Red and green. Red hair and green clothes...he opened his eyes, angry again.

Every night, it seemed like, he always saw the same images inside his head. Red hair, green clothes. Strange images and memories caught at his brain that made no sense. Mirrored lenses, a tinfoil hat, red hair. Everything around here put him in a loop. Memories, dreams, thoughts. He couldn't do anything here. There was no way to research anything, search for anything, no way to make money, no way to plan or plot. Too much damned white.

Slowly, he tried to search for his _chi_ as Butler had taught him, but it didn't make sense. He couldn't find it without Butler, not when Butler was a million miles away and unable to help him at all. There was no calm place--his mind was one solid sheet of white, swirling and blocking everything out. White ceiling leads to white walls, ticking keeps time to the gentle pulsation of the white _luna, lunar, lunacy _moonbeams on his itching skin—

Abruptly he stood up, pacing the small room. Red hair. Well, that didn't mean anything. Lots of people had red hair. That French girl he'd talked to today—Madison—even she had red hair. He'd been dreaming about her? Had he even been asleep?

Restless, Artemis tried the handle of his door and found it locked, unsurprisingly. Bolted inside, only unlockable from the outside. Not even a keyhole in here. It would be unlocked in five hours, when they opened all the doors at five o'clock. Until then, he was useless.

There was nothing to manipulate here. Nothing at all. So, logically, there was only one thing to do. Find a way out. How? Manipulation…but he couldn't work with computer systems, not anymore. The only thing left to work with was…people.

Artemis breathed out, grabbing onto the thought and holding it like it was his _chi_. He could manipulate people. It was just a different type of computer program. What did people believe? Innocence, acting, understanding, caring…Artemis grimaced, but didn't hesitate. Humans were programmed, too. A Fowl stopped at nothing to reach his goals. This was just one more obstacle. How to relate to people…

-

"Mmm, ice cream. A _belle nourriture_**.**" Madison fell into the chair in front of Artemis, bouncing on the comfortable cushions. The room was furnished comfortably--after all, this was for the insanely rich. Armchairs, wooden tables, bookshelves filled with psychologist-approved books that were mentally uplifting, lamps. Madison was holding a childish plastic bowl filled with the vanilla-flavored sweet, the beautiful food, as she called it, with a spoon in her other hand.

Artemis glanced up at her. "A childish delight."

"But a lovely one." Madison grinned and put a spoonful in her mouth, savoring it. "Don't tell me that you don't like ice cream."

"The food here is atrocious," Artemis said disdainfully.

"It's vanilla bean," Madison said temptingly, waving it underneath his nose. Artemis gave her a Look and she put it in her own mouth. "More for me, then."

"Do you have a purpose to this conversation?" Artemis asked, icy as usual.

"Boredom, Artemis. I imagine you're bored here quite frequently."

"The mental challenges and entertainment are quite inadequate," he allowed.

Madison laughed again. "Do you listen to yourself talk? S_'allume ! C'est hilarant! _No one speaks like that."

"I am glad you find me hilarious," Artemis said icily. "I, however, do not consider myself to be so."

Madison grinned, but didn't say anything, opting for ice cream instead. Artemis bent his head back over his notebook, his pencil moving across the paper as he wrote in narrow, thin handwriting, Madison watching him curiously.

"What are you writing?" she asked.

"Notes," Artemis said, still looking down. "Plans. Organizing my thoughts."

Madison swallowed the last spoonful of ice cream, letting the spoon clatter back into the bowl as she set it on the table. "Chess?"

"Excuse me?"

"This is boring. Would you like to play chess?"

Artemis looked up as she pulled a board from a nearby table and slammed it in front of him. "I'm not very good," she said, spinning it around to give him white and setting up the pieces. "I'm not one for chess, to tell you the truth. Too mathematical." She smiled, more a showing of teeth than an actual smile. "But you, you're the criminal mastermind, right? What is it you say? I don't know, some vaguely criminal mastermind thingy." She waved a hand with a queen in it and set it down on the board.

"'Thingy'?" Artemis said coldly. "Your stupidity is overwhelming. I won't lower myself to play chess with you."

"_Merde d'haute naissance_," Madison said, and threw the queen at his head.

-

"Mythologically, Artemis was the goddess of the moon," Madison said, and Artemis looked down at her with no expression. She was lying outside, flat on the concrete, red hair spread like a halo around her. "In the Catholic faith, Mary is portrayed to be a sort of Goddess. Her pagan counterpart would be The Mother Goddess, who was portrayed to be goddess of the moon, which governed women, originating on the basis that a woman's menstrual cycle matched up with the lunar calendar. Incidentally, the word 'lunacy' comes from 'lunar', meaning 'moon', and someone thought to be a lunatic was thought to have spent too much time out in the moon."

Her pale eyes shone in the moonlight, and she focused them on Artemis. "_Les femmes, la lune, la folie. Que fait-qui vous?_"

"It doesn't make me anything," Artemis said. "My personality or mind is not deterimined by women or the moon, and I am not insane. Ancient mythology has no bearing on who I am."

"I disagree," Madison said, pronounced. "Names, unconsciously, or consciously, play a part in who you are. Every name must be lived up to something. Artemis was the goddess of the moon, the hunt, and fertility. I'd say you're only a third fufilled, at best."

"Basing a knowledge of a person by their name alone is a highly sentimental, highly illogical language weakness, which is also portrayed in mythology," he added wryly. "A name has nothing to do with a person."

"You could do with some language skills," she mused. "Artemis, cold and precise. A plotter, a planner, cold and focused in intent. A hunter. I'd say you have the lunar thing down, but fertility is a bit out there. You could be gay, of course..." she trailed off and started laughing uncontrollably. "_C'est une impossibilité véritable, imaginer un s'inhumain infatué avec n'importe quel sexe_. I can't see you with any girls, much less any guys."

"It is no business of yours," he said icily, while Madison was still laughing.

"_Donc ironique!_ So cold, so pale, so far away. For you to show emotion, Artemis, would indeed be once in a blue moon. But I think it does happen."

"It doesn't matter how you feel," Artemis said, his tone flat. "Emotions are frivilious--it is how you react and think that is important."

"Look at you." Madison shook her head, then spread her hands out to include the entire sky above them. "Look at that, Artemis. It is the sky. It is cold, glittering perfection, but even the stars have emotions. What are you, a computer? Emotions are what make us human."

"Stars do not have emotions," Artemis said icily. "It's an overpersonification of inanimate objects that has no purpose besides to serve the fancies of the dreamer. Human is not something one should aspire to be, either. What have humans to be proud of?"

"_Donc le froid,_" she said softly, almost too softly for Artemis to hear. "You are right, of course. What have humans to be proud of?" Her voice was grand, mocking, as she stared up into the sky. "This. Look, Artemis. Look at the sky. We have chained it, we have locked it out. _We have put telephone wires across the sky._ That is what you are proud of."

"I want to offer you a chance to get out of here," he said quietly. Madison was silent, looking up at the sky. "It is simple. I have contacts on the outside, but every form of communication is severely limited. I need an ally inside this place, and you are one of the most lucid. You help me, we both get out. I never see you again, you never see me again. We're both free."

Madison rolled over, a small smile quirking at the corners of her mouth. "A friendship? You're proposing a mutually beneficial friendship?"

"Ally," Artemis said coldly. "And after this, we never see each other again." _Never see again?_ The phrase tugged something at his memory, but it was cast from his mind as Madison spoke.

"To get out of this? _Presque n'importe quoi, le chéri, presque n'importe quoi_. Almost anything," she repeated in English, fervently. "Lunar canon. _Artemis de déesse, brillant dans le clair de lune, venant me secourir ici."_

"Good," Artemis said briskly, and stood up, the moonlight indeed shining on his white shirt and pale skin."We start at dawn."


	2. Burning the Black Candles

**Telephone Wires**

**Chapter 2: Burning the Black Candles**

**Summary: **A memory, a phrase, a girl, a plan, and a third of his soul. Years later, Artemis is trapped in a psych ward and will do anything to escape.

**Notes:** I love this fic. My plans for this have changed drastically, and I now have a lot of elaborate plans for this fic that will probably never happen. I would like to make a three-part series about how three girls (Madison, another girl, and Holly) impacted Artemis, which are at the moment called _Depth Perception_, _Red Light Zenith_, and of course _Telephone Wires._

Um, all the things in French are not necessary to the story, (if they are, they are translated nearby--I don't speak French so sorry if it's not perfect) no worries if you don't speak it (like me), but Madison needs her little expletive now and then and it's semi-amusing if you want to look them up. I don't live off reviews, so just review if you want, though constructive (not necessarily positive) feedback would be nice. To whoever asked: I don't think it'll be M/A, just because Madison's going to have problems. Anyone who's read _A Beautiful Mind_ will find strange similiarities. Sorry about the language but they're both eighteen, and real eighteen year olds talk like that. Rating **is** PG-13. Madison's superficiality will be her undoing. Mm. I do like this.

**PG-13** for **language, mild sexual content. **

**Disclaimer:** Artemis belongs to Eoin Colfer, as do his memories. I'll claim Madison and her weird, immature, antisocial self. ...hey, she's kinda like me...

* * *

"I've recently become interested in witchcraft," Madison told her psychologist. 

Dr. Tolin didn't deserve this. He was a nice man, with a young wife and a son who loved video games. He insisted on positivity in his therapy sessions, including playing games with the client, casual, curious conversation, flattery, an ego treatment. He wanted to become friends with his clients so they would open up to him. Madison, he didn't like. She talked with her friends all the time, over the phone, chatting about nail polish and gossip and quoting Monty Python, jibbering in French half the time. He knew; he monitored all her calls. But she wouldn't talk to him. For the three years she had been in 'the Home', as they called it, she had never once said anything to him about her schizophrenia or her crime.

And now--this. The Home allowed patients to wear what they wanted, to create a home-like atmosphere, to make them comfortable and feel like they weren't in a mental hospital, and, of course, to save the expense of buying and maintaining uniforms. Usually, Madison wore jeans and a nice, casual shirt. Today, she had walked in with black, baggy pants, a black hooded sweatshirt with an anarchy sign, hood up around her face to hide her hair. Her makeup was dark, eye-heavy, making her look either evil or like a lost little child, he couldn't decide. And now she was talking of witchcraft.

"And why have you become intersted in witchcraft?" he asked, trying to sound interested.

"I like the idea. Gaining powers from the earth, identifying with the elements. I think my power is Darkness."

Dr. Tolin didn't know anything about witchcraft and frankly didn't want to, but he had to try. "Darkness?" he quibbled. "Why darkness?"

"Darkness is everywhere, especially here. My rom is so dark at night, and I'm tired of fighting it...it's so much easier to accept it."

Dr. Tolin's mind was racing. As soon as he got out, he'd make a full report, and get some lamps in that girl's room. Lots of lamps. "Why do you think you have to fight the darkness?" he asked.

Madison ignored him."I'm becoming attracted to pagan ways as well," she said. "Druids, ancient rituals, early Great Britain type of stuff. A woman's body as a temple, powers of the moon." She smiled as she said it, although her hood hid it. _Donc ironique._ "Festivals and things to celebrate sex. I think it's a much more open-minded view than what peple have today. They looked on orgies as a sign of worship, not a thing to hate."

"And you suddenly find yourself liking this open sexuality?" Dr. Tolin asked calmly.

"I want to celebrate being myself and who I am," Madison said innocently. "I feel like I'm repressing my sexual nature."

"And what about a relationship? Sex is best when a steady, or at least reliable, relationship has been reached. Sex for its own sake isn't good for you," Dr. Tolin said quietly.

"I don't think this is what it's about," Madison said. "I mean, I feel like I'm being repressed here. A camera is in every room, watching everything I do. They're even in the bathroom. _Je ne peux pas prendre une foutaise sans étant regardé._ It's like...what's the book? Big Brother, with all the cameras?"

"1984," Dr. Tolin said automatically. "So you think that you are under constant surveillence? Paranoia?"

"I am not paranoid. I really am under constant surveillance," Madison protested. Dr. Tolin wrote something down. He had already filled five pages with highly unsettling obeservations. "Everyone here hates me. I don't have any friends at all. Being schizophrenic is better than this." She winced at that. She hated talking about her schizophrenia with this man, who was like a predatory butterfly. Large, smiling, and evil. She didn't want to tell him anything, but it was all part of the plan. If she mixed in a little truth with all that other bull she had fed him, he might actually swallow it. "At least then somebody would listen to me."

Dr. Tolin patted her on the shoulder and she stiffened. "I'm listening to you, Madison," he said gently, sensing a breakthrough. "I can't wait to hear what you're going to say next. I'm here for you."

Madison stiffened. "But you're not _her,_" she said, and plan or no plan, she would not tell him anymore. "This session is over. I'm going to go finish my research on Druids." Standing up, she left the room and slammed the door behind her.

---

Artemis was in the hallway, sitting at an armchair, apparently reading _Moby Dick._ "It is not necessary to slam the doors," he said pointedly.

"I was diagnosed with OBDSD," she said, leaning against the wall. Artemis looked at her questioningly and she smirked. "Obsessive-Complusive Door-Slamming Disorder."

Artemis rolled his eyes. "This is no time to be cute," he said icily. "Or ever, for that matter. Don't you have somewhere else to be?"

"Yes, in fact," Madison said cooly. "My books are waiting for me in my room. The nurses change at three o'clock and I told Cindy yesterday to bring me _Jane Eyre_. She should be here by now."

Artemis nodded. _Three o'clock._ "Well, then, I suggest you go," he said cooly. "My appointment is in a few minutes, and Cindy should have brought you--what was it? Oh, yes, I remember. _Jane Eyre. _How childish."

"Oh, go see your psychologist," Madison spat. "Maybe he'll beat you into being sociable."

She walked down the hall briskly, ignoring Artemis completely. A black camera in the corner followed her steps out.

---

There were three nurses and two guards on duty in Artemis's hall of the building, which was affectionately nicknamed 'The Hellhole' by the boys therein, though it was in reality comfortable and bespoke of elegance. The halls were plain wood paneling and armchairs dotted the hallways, as well as tables where some of the boys played cards, though not Artemis. The rooms were white, with lofty ceilings and wood-paneled floors. At one end of the hall, there were elaborate French doors leading to a balcony where one could look down on the gardens--the only place not to have audio bugs and video cameras. At the other end of the hall were two doors--one set of double doors leading into the common area and the rest of the establishment--and one door, small and metal, stainless steel. There was no lock on the inside, no way to unbolt it. That door went into the staff area.

The three nurses of the Hellhole switched around duty periodically, taking two days at a time, with Sunday having one of the regular staff nurses watch the hall. Carol came on Mondays and Tuesdays. She was a strict, statesque, motherly woman, who would take requests for books but not video games. She always told Artemis to eat more and get out in the sun, and treated him like a child. He disliked her immensely. Joan came on Wednesdays and Thurdsdays. She was small, dark-haired, middle-aged, and boring. She took requests for everything with a bland look, and ignored anything the boys were doing, which was fine by them. The third nurse was Amanda, who came Fridays and Saturdays. She was almost afraid of the boys, especially on Fridays and Saturdays when they got rowdy, and pushed her big glasses up on her nose, often squinting at the list she was supposed to be writing of their requests.

The guards weren't there in the same way a ghost wasn't there. They were everpresent, ready to be called out at the least sign of any incidents that might occur. They were trained in crowd-control, both former police officers. John Mataris had been a bouncer before joining the police, and had three years on a SWAT team before a knee surgery had forced him off the squad. Matthew Prewett had been on a riot squad in New York City before retiring to go into college, with a minor in Psychology. Both men were highly trained in how to treat prisoners who Started a Scene, which usually meant taking them away to speak with Dr. Jackson, who ran the Home.

Dr. Jackson was not a bad man. But if you were called to Dr. Jackson's office, you were going to Have a Talk and be reminded How This Was Not A Place To Come To Have Fun, It Was A Place Of Punishment and then reminded, with that little quiet voice he had, exactly how nice the punishment was now and wouldn't we all like to keep it that way?

And that wasn't all. The students section of the Home was very nice, with elegant dark wood paneling inside and marble terraces outside, with lovely gardens professionally kept--behind stone walls. Not any of this shabby chain-link wire-fence nonsense, either. These were real stone walls, very slick and very tall, with niches seven foot up the wall where black video cameras rested. To give the Home some credit, these did not watch the garden, or at least watch it closely enough to tell what the occupants were saying. Just enough to know when Johnny had gone on a killing rampage, and definately enough to know if anyone had tried to climb the wall.

Inside, it was even more impenetrable. The students had the entire back half of the building--a wing on the far left side of the building for boys, on the far right for girls, a large common area inbetween; including a large library, filled with pyschologist-approved books, a modern, comfortable cafe style cafeteria, several large airy classrooms, a marble paved swimming pool with a lovely mosaic ceiling, and a mini-observatory on the second floor.

But to get into the front part of the building from the back was impossible. There were only three doors into the front part of the building, all stainless steel with a stainless steel frame, and reinforced metal walls behind the wood paneling. None of them had a handle on the inside. One was near the entrance to the boys wing, where it was handy to have for laundry and such, and another like it at the slightly smaller girls wing. The only other one was on the second floor, in the group therapy room.

To any inmates trapped within, it would have been totally impenetrable.

But Artemis Fowl was bored. He needed a challenge.

---

"Now Artemis," Dr. Ribdan said, pencil poised on his notepad, "Have you ever read the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy?"

"I'm sorry?" Artemis said, coldly, more insulting than polite. "You are asking me if I have read a book that was written in what was possibly the worst literary structure ever?"

Dr.Ribdan wrote something down. "I was wondering, Artemis, what you thought of the idea of the universe being random."

"Illogical," he said immediately. "A fantasy created in the chaos of one person's mind for entertainment value because he could think of no legitimate plots."

"Yet many people hold Douglas Adams to be a genius," Dr. Ribdan pointed out.

Artemis snorted, showing his utter disdain of that line of thought. "A genius at being able to be totally illogical," he said disdainfully, coldly. "If living in utter chaos is a qualification for being a genius, and if so I am utterly unaware of it."

"Kids these days," Dr. Ribdan said to himself. "Too much dark sarcasm in the classroms."

---

"Damn!"

Geoffry Abdul was frustrated. Beyond frustrated, in fact. He did not like Economics in the slightest, and his homework was offering no cooperation. He slumped. Who _cared_ what supply and demand had to do with the Gross-Something-Or-The-Other? And sales and marketing was totally beyond him. Why did the government demand so much tax? Who cared? Six questions, only six questions. Not that much. But when he had seen: "You own a newspaper business in a small town. A large grocery store moves into the town, and ninety percent of the people in that town begin to go to that grocery store for all their groceries. The town has three previously existing small groceries that take out ads in your paper, which account for 30% of your income. Explain the effects of this grocery store on the town, how it will effect you, and how you should change your marketing strategy to deal with this.", he's nearly vomited.

"Economics?" a cold voice asked. Geoffry turned around.

_Oh no,_ he wanted to groan. _Not _Artemis. Artemis Fowl. Who had sent John Amerdon, who could benchpress 100kilos, gibbering in terror. Who acted like a bloody vampire, with that pale skin and that black hair. Who stared at you and steepled his hands and turned you inside out and found you an insignificant speck of dust he was walking over. Not Artemis Fowl.

"Erm, nothing," Geoffry said hurriedly, slamming the book shut. "Nothing, just having some trouble, I'll get it worked out, thanks for your time, I think I'll just go to my room now--"

Artemis ignored him, sitting on the table across from him and opening the book. His face was expressionless as he read question one. "Elementary," he said with a sniff. He glanced at Geoffry's paper, which was full of eraser marks and doodles on the side. "You don't understand it?"

"No," Geoffry said, half defiantly, half afraid. "I mean, so the business moves in, okay? What does that have to do with you? You're supposed to be running a newspaper, not a grocery store. It doesn't affect you."

"Not true." Artemis laid the book down and tapped the paper. "You run a newspaper, true. But there are three grocery stores in the town who put ads in your newspaper weekly--it says so right here." He tapped the paper. "Forget about the newspaper. If you owned a grocery store, how would this effect you? Suddenly a store comes in that is ten times bigger than you. They can sell the exact same thing you're selling at half-price, and they're open twenty-four hours and have a restaurant in the store, too. Do you think people are going to still go to your meager grocery store?"

"No," Geoffry snorted. "Course not, it'd be stupid when there's the big nice place on the corner."

Artemis cringed inwardly. Such stupidity! _It's for the plan,_ he reminded himself, and kept his face expressionless. "Right. So you, the owner of the grocery store," he said, barely able to keep the condescention out of his voice, "suddenly are running out of customers. No one is buying at your store. You barely have money to keep the store stocked. So how are you going to afford an ad in the newspaper?"

"I'm not," Geoffry said slowly. "I won't have enough money."

"Right," Artemis said, and this time there was a hint of disdain in his voice. Acting! He was not meant to be an actor. He focused. "So you own the newspaper, and suddenly the grocery store owners can't afford to put ads in your paper."

"You're only running at 70%," Geoffry said. "You don't have as much money coming in and you can't fill your ad spaces."

Artemis was impressed. From someone like Geoffry, this was high-level thinking. "Yes. And with only 70%, you can't put out as many newspapers. You're losing money."

He sat brack, watching the wheels in Geoffry's brain turn, then pushed the paper towards him. Geoffry begain to write, and Artemis surveyed him critically. Dim. So dim. Madison had said that he was moderately attractive--'cute' was the word she had used--but there was nothing under that curly brown hair, and no intelligence inside his pretty blue eyes.

He wasn't even really a good patient of the Home--he hadn't committed any crimes or done anything wrong. Madison, who had known him pre-psych-ward, had told Artemis about him: drugs. Heavy into Ecstasy, bad girlfriend, sampling cocaine and in deep shit when his father had found out. His father was also closeminded and certain that this was some sort of psychological disorder on his son's part--that he had somehow screwed his son's brain and done something to turn him to drugs. He had spent so many years in psychiatric school, counseling kids with problems, that he had never considered that a good kid could just get pulled the wrong way.

But still. This boy was, unknown to the other members of the Home, one of the most priveleged members. His father was Dr. Abdul, who had been good friends with Dr. Jackson back in psychiatry school, and as a result, Dr. Jackson allowed him to go out with his family _unbugged_.

---

_but her world just keeps spinning backwards and upside down_

Madison sighed and finished the circle, setting the chalk in the center. Black candles were at each corner of the pentagon she had drawn inside, and she knelt in the middle, smiling securely since her back was to the camera in her room. Oh, she was having fun. Artemis might be a horrible actor, but if Madison had a major failing, it was that she loved drama. And had slight schizophrenic homocidial tendencies, of course.

But still. She had had _connections--_before the Home, of course. She had known everyone. And luckily, she had known Geoffry. It was how she had been recommended to the Home, after all, through a friend of her father's. And a few of those connections had been Satanic, or at least heavily into gothic symbols.

_I mean, honestly, _she thought frankly. _A low-cut slutty blood red evening dress? White face and blood red lipstick and black eyeshadow? How is that supposed to call on the demons?_ But she wasn't commplaing. At least, not where the cameras could hear her. But it was impossible to get any suitably occult books at a psychiatric hospital.

She sighed where the cameras couldn't hear, and turned, lighting each candle faintly. There was a heat shimmer near the ceiling, that flickered after she lit the candle, but she assumed it was the match. Turning around, still kneeling in the red dress, she lit the other candle, then on around the circle until all five black candles were burning. The heat shimmer near the ceiling moved a bit as the wind she created when she turned blew it around.

Her hair was long, the blond-red spiling over the red dress and her pale skin, making her look unsuitably happy. _I'll have to dye my hair, _she was thinking, but then faced the first candle. In what she hoped were suitably occult tones, she intoned: "Je ne crois pas en toute cette connerie, mais nous envoie des conseils, grand terrier de l'OH de la puissance de jet." Well, Spray Power wasn't really suitably translatable, but the gist was there: _I don't believe in all this bullshit, but send us guidance, oh great terrier of Spray Power. _

Managing to keep a straight face, she turned to the next candle and began the real prayer. M'envoyer la technologie," she whispered in French, which she was willing to bet that the staff could translate. _Send me technology._ Next candle. "M'envoyer un orage agréable qui débarassera de leur électricité et allons unmonitored juste assez long." Not quite as reverent, but more to the point: _Send me a nice storm that will get rid of their electricity and let us go unmonitored just long enough._ A solemn bowed head at that candle, then a quarter-turn that she tried to make solemn enough, though it ended up looking ridiculous. Ah, well, the show must go on. Cogner hors les fils téléphoniques." _Knock out the telephone wires. _And finally, the last candle, the tallest, where she was supposed to complete her prayer. _"Artemis,"_ she said, without knowing why. "M'épargner de cette prison, si vous vraiment êtes Dieu, ou quoi que la divinité occulte que je prie à. Aider ceci réussit." _Save me from this prison, if you really are God, or whatever occult deity I'm praying to. Help this succeed._ Not very occult, but heartfelt.

Sitting back, she closed her eyes. The heat shimmer near the ceiling still hovered, and there was quick wind, a sound of slamming doors down the hall. When she opened her eyes, all the black candles were extinguished.


End file.
